Fortune Values Tour Experience

Former Manchester United midfielder Quinton Fortune feels the club's current crop of young players will learn as much from their off-the-field experiences in South Africa as they will on the pitch.

The 35-year-old is returning to his homeland with the official party on the DHL pre-season tour before moving on to Asia and Scandinavia as the club prepares for the new campaign.

"Obviously it'll be a new experience for the new players going on this trip," Fortune told ManUtd.com. "Many of them have never been to South Africa so they'll be going to the townships and seeing how people live like that will be a great experience.

"There will be some great games. It's a great opportunity to be playing against some quality teams. Believe me, Ajax Cape Town and AmaZulu will take the opportunity to play against United very seriously.

"But it will be educational for the players to go to see places first-hand. It will do them the world of good as they can see how other people live and just appreciate playing for Manchester United even more."

Fortune is relishing his Tour 2012 role, which involves working with official partners, sponsors and fans, but is envious of the younger players looking to make their mark on the first team.

"I just wish I was their age and still playing," he admitted. "I’m looking forward to it. I enjoy it, I’ve just come back from Bangladesh as I did some work with the phone companies over there and it’s great to see new places.

"The people look after you and you get to see another country. Fans there were waiting to ask me about the club and yet I thought Bangladesh was all about cricket. Instead, you see the number of United fans and these people are crazy for their football."

As well as the trip to his native South Africa, the stay in China is clearly something that excites the former Bafana Bafana star.

"I’ve never been to China before so I’m looking forward to it," he added. "I had a taste for Asia when we had a tour out there in 2001. David Beckham was there and I swear he could have gone on his own. We could’ve just stayed here and let him go out.

"We turned up at the hotel and there were a lot of fans outside taking pictures of him. We were like: ‘Great, what about us?!’ We had big players like [Roy] Keane, [Andy] Cole and [Dwight] Yorke. When you walked into the hotel reception, there was a line of security and people on the floor just waiting there the whole day. All day! Just for training, we had so many people turn up it was crazy. 50,000 fans for training. It was absolutely mad – more so probably because of Beckham."

The DHL Tour 2012 dates

18 July v AmaZulu, Durban
21 July v Ajax Cape Town, Cape Town
25 July v Shenhua Shanghai, Shanghai
5 August v Valerenga, Oslo
8 August v Barcelona, Gothenburg